When was the last time you cleaned your darts?

Maybe.. "Never"?

Accumulated dirt, skin acid, chalk dust, pretzel salt, hand lotion, (beer), etc. can build up on your dart barrels. This corrosive mixture is what actually eats away that original pretty finish.

Skin acid is pretty potent stuff. As example, just look at how quickly a new penny, or polished silverware, tarnishes after being handled.

That acid, along with salty residue from snacks, is very effective at corroding away the nickel matrix that is the binding material in nickel/tungsten darts.

When someone's dart start to show wear, with knurling smoothing down, & the sharp edges of grooves becoming rounded, it is not usually just due to hitting other darts. The majority of such wear is simply corrosion.

To greatly extend the useful life of your darts, clean them regularly, and especially after eating any salty or greasy snacks. Any mild cleaner that can remove oil will do: hand soap, household ammoniated cleaners, even moist towelletes (not the ones that contain hand lotion!). At tournaments or league, small alcohol swab packets are handy.

Removing all of that crud from your darts will not only make them last longer, but will also restore much of the grip by removing both the slippery feeling and the particles filling-in the hollows of the knurling.

Just about any sport equipment needs to be cleaned regularly to remove sweat, dirt, etc., yet it never occurs to most people that their darts also need cleaning.

Not to mention.. isn't it a bit gross to be handling those grubby darts that have been on the floor, bars, tables, many hands, etc.?

So, to make your darts last longer & throw better... keep 'em clean!

Rick Osgood

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Here's a link to humorous CyberDarts article about "keeping clean":
Just Right!